Wireless data communication networks today typically involve data transmission of modulated information signals from one or more network controller devices to one or more remote client devices, and back, over various network communications links. Several distinct architectures have been deployed to meet the ever-increasing demands of modern wireless communications systems. Accordingly, these wireless data communications networks may vary in both access techniques and carrier modulation techniques. For example, modern cellular communications networks have been deployed according to frequency division multiple access, time division multiple access, and code division multiple access. Further, cellular communications networks typically employ various analog and/or digital modulation techniques, including: amplitude, frequency and/or phase modulation, and amplitude, frequency and/or phase shift-key modulation. Regardless of a particular wireless communication network's architecture or topology, these networks all share a common problem: communications degradation caused by extraneous energy sources unlawfully or unintentionally operating on frequencies dedicated for particular network communication channels.
Network operators often expend significant resources in order to license and broadcast over a dedicated communications frequency spectrum. Theoretically, this license awards the operator exclusive access to the licensed spectrum across a specific geographic region or area. Based on their exclusivity rights, operators may advantageously plan where and how they wish to allocate network resources, including, but not limited to: network controllers (e.g., network switching centers and/or network managers), databases, basestations, gateways, signal repeaters, etc. Operators within a network may also use their proprietary rights to determine which frequencies to employ at each basestation within a particular network topology. In this way, licensed operators can effectively optimize the design of their data communications networks to maximize system integrity and throughput.
Unfortunately, unlicensed users often purposefully or inadvertently operate external devices that that emit electromagnetic energy over a licensed frequency or frequency spectrum. These operations can cause unwanted electromagnetic interference that negatively affects the performance of various network resources. This rogue interference can degrade and/or add noise to data communications between two or more network devices (e.g., communications between a basestation and remote client devices) over dedicated communications channels. In some cases, the interference sources may be static in nature (e.g., always present) and in other cases the interference sources may be dynamic in nature (e.g., with only an intermittent presence).
In the case of cellular communications networks, one or more cellular interference sources may individually or collectively reduce the quality of service (QOS) characteristics associated with one or more cellular network users. QOS metrics affected by such interference may include, but are not limited to, communications quality, queuing delay, information loss, dropping existing network sessions, blocking new network sessions, etc. Generally, the degradation of various QOS metrics reduces cellular network throughput.
In order to maintain an acceptable QOS experienced by network users, it is desirable to remove all detectable sources of static and dynamic interference that may affect a given network's or network sector's (interchangeably disclosed as a network “cell”) throughput. It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a network sector or cell generally includes a boundary-enclosed subregion within a larger data communications network. This subregion may include, but is not limited to, one or more cell basestations and multiple client devices in data communications with the basestation(s) over a predetermined, regionally-allocated frequency spectrum.
In the past, attempts have been made to determine interference sources at the basestation level, such that one or more network basestations were capable of detecting a broad regional area (e.g., a particular network cell), wherein an interference source may be operating. However, this high-level detection still requires a significant amount of manual intervention for further pin-pointing the location of one or more sources of interference (e.g., requiring an operator to drive a vehicle, adapted with expensive interference measurement equipment, around a network sector, taking measurements, to precisely determine a specific interference source location). Particularly with dynamic interference sources, this type of detection generally requires a significant amount of detective work on the part of a network authority to determine a location of an intermittent interference source.
Therefore, there continues to be a need for improved data communications systems and methods that can effectively detect and precisely and accurately locate both static and dynamic interference sources within or between affected cells of any data communications network topology. It would be beneficial if this solution could minimize the manual intervention required for precise determination of interference source locations. Further, it would be beneficial if these systems and methods could be fully automated and centrally configured by a network controller device.